Better Beginnings Mod for Minecraft 1.10.2/1.8

The goal of Better Beginnings Mod 1.10.2 is to extend the beginning portion of Minecraft early game, increase the difficulty, all while staying true to the original feel of vanilla. The early stage of Minecraft tends to be quick and easy. It is to punch three logs, make a crafting table, make a wood pick, mine three stone. There is no more early game.

With Better Beginnings Mod, you will spend a much longer time “on the move”, simply trying to survive the terrifying world you live in. Do you like punching trees and wood tools?

While Better Beginnings Mod is primarily designed with early game in mind, it also adds features that continue this experience throughout the survival gameplay. This mod is designed to stay close to the gameplay of vanilla Minecraft.

Getting Started

To start off, you will need to find gravel. You can find it in the entrances to caves, on cliff faces, and even in the water. Gravel is quite easy to find if you look for it. You will need at least 4 pieces of flint to get started. You can also make flint by crafting 4 blocks of gravel in any shape (though you’ll only have room for a square). To get started, you will need to make a flint knife. You can craft a flint knife with two pieces of flint in a diagonal pattern.

A knife is a valuable tool. They come in many variants from flint all the way to diamond. Breaking grass and vines has a chance to silk touch them like shears do. Knives are good for whittling down things like saplings and bones. Knives also function as a fairly good weapon, dealing about as much damage as an axe.

After that, you’ll need to make an axe. In Better Beginnings Mod, most blocks cannot be broken without the correct tool. If you try to break a block with the wrong tool, all you’ll get is a bit of durability lost. If you try to use your fists, what do you think the player’s “durability” is? You will need some sticks, which can be crafted with your knife out of saplings as well as some leather strips, made the same way out of leather. Then, with your sticks and flint, you can make a flint hatchet:

Now you can chop down wood. You will need some planks to make a couple crafting tables (yes, you will need two). When you place two crafting tables next to each other, they combine into an advanced crafting table necessary to craft anything but the most basic of equipment.

This advanced crafting table has four additional slots used for ‘catalyst’ ingredients needed to complete the crafted item. Things are like wool to pad armor, iron nuggets for rivets, leather strips to tie things together are all used as catalysts. When laying out the crafting recipe, materials needed are displayed as ghost items in the catalyst slots. If you try to use a recipe that requires the advanced crafting table in a regular crafting table, a red ‘X’ will appear over the arrow as an indication of this.

If you have existing vanilla crafting tables in your mod, you can craft them into Better Beginnings’ crafting tables like this.

To make your very first pickaxe, the bone pickaxe, you will need some bone shards which are made out of a knife and some bones. One bone makes two bone shards. You can also grind the shards further with your knife to make 2 bonemeal per shard, as a bonus for using your knife. When being peaceful, bones are dropped from all creatures when killed by the player. Smaller creatures like chickens drop bone shards. If you’re on easy+, you’re going to have to fight a skeleton. It is lucky for you if you’ve got a knife. Once you have the needed materials, you can craft your pickaxe:

Now that you have a pickaxe, you can finally mine some stone, and get started with your survival world.

Furnaces

The vanilla furnace has been replaced by three new furnaces, each with their own task. No cooking your meat the same place you smelt your gold. That would be gross. Instead, each furnace has its own purpose, with upgraded versions.

Kiln

The Kiln is a basic furnace for smelting simple materials like cobblestone into smooth stone, sand into glass, logs into charcoal, clay into bricks, and overcook your meat. This is the first thing you will make once you have cobblestone. It runs on the usual furnace fuels except blaze rods and lava, which are too hot for this furnace. It uses the same recipe as the vanilla furnace (There is a config option for an alternative recipe for the vanilla furnace for compatibility purposes).

Later in the game, the kiln can be upgraded to an Obsidian Kiln:

This kiln much more efficient and much faster version of the regular Kiln, and can also use advanced fuels, crafted like so:

Brick Oven

The Brick Oven is a furnace for cooking food. It has a 3×3 crafting grid, which you put your ingredients in. Food that used to be made in the crafting grid such as bread and cake, now is made here. Foods formerly made in the furnace (meat) will be made here in a one-ingredient ‘shapeless’ recipe. Golden foods are also made here except speckled melons, since you really shouldn’t be cooking watermelon. Also, fermented spider eyes ( Who came up with that idea?) and magma creams are made in the oven.

The brick oven can also be upgraded to the Nether Brick Oven, which runs on hot fluids (lava or pyrotheum for example) instead of solid fuels.

It also cooks a bit faster than the regular brick oven. Hotter fluids (like pyrotheum) last longer than cooler ones. There is a minimum temperature of 500K, so you don’t accidentally put water in or anything that has no use. It is crafted like this:

Smelter

The Smelter is for processing ores. All ores, even silk-touched ones can be processed here, with a reasonable output (no more one lapis per lapis ore). The Smelter runs on charcoal and more “refined” fuels. Plain coal is not allowed. It also requires gravel to process these ores, more expensive ores will require more gravel including silk-touched ones. This furnace is made out of stone bricks:

This can be upgraded with end stone and ender eyes into the Ender Smelter:

The Ender Smelter uses the energy of the end to gain a chance of doubling or tripling how much ore you get, especially out of silk-touched ores. It still uses gravel, but processes much faster and can use ender peals and eyes as efficient fuel sources.

Blaze Rods and Lava Buckets are too hot of fuel sources to be usable in the Kiln and Brick Oven. Only the Smelter and higher-level furnaces can use them. Bedrock can be placed in any furnace as a creative mode “infinite” fuel source.

Repair Infusion Station

You find yourself using your pickaxe or sword to get just enough xp to repair it. If your item is enchanted well enough, no amount of levels can repair it. Instead, this mod adds Repair Infusion where materials with magical ties to the tool can be infused with it, repairing it. The Repair Infusion Station works by taking the tool’s material and enchantments, and then infusing associated items into the tool. You still use the vanilla anvil for making your super-enchanted diamond tools, but repairing them is better suited for the infusion station. It is crafted out of obsidian, diamonds, and a few other things:

Each material of armor and tool has its own item needed. Each enchantment adds additional items, depending on which enchantment and how strong it is. Depending on the version of BetterBeginnings you’re using, this is displayed in different ways.

1.8 Versions:

You can place your tool on the Infusion Repair Station by right-clicking on the station with the item you wish to repair. If the item is damaged, the first item needed to repair it will be displayed above the table as a hologram. Supplying the right materials to the table is by dropping them on the table. When the full amount of the material is given, it will be sucked up onto one of the spots around the tool. Any further items required by the tool based on enchantment are added the same way. When all the items are supplied and in the table, you will see green “villager” particles appear above the table. This means the table now needs experience to complete the repair. Simply stand on the table and it will drain your experience, level by level, until it is full. Once it’s full, the tool will be repaired and the materials consumed. Right-click the table again to get your item back.

In the 1.8 version, you can use an Infusion Scroll to see exactly what items the Infusion Repair Station needs as well as how much is needed. You should simply right-click on the station with the scroll, and the next ingredient will be displayed in chat. The Infusion Scroll has infinite uses. It is crafted like this:

1.7.10 Versions:

In the 1.7.10 version, the Repair Infusion Station has a GUI where you can place the required items. Which items are required and how much will be shown as ghost items in the interface. There is also a minimum level requirement to infuse such materials into your item. Repairing will cost levels, but a lesser amount than the minimum level requirement (much like 1.8 enchanting) For example, an Iron Pickaxe with Efficiency III and Fortune I will require 1 iron ingot (Iron Pickaxe), 12 sugar (4 sugar per level of Efficiency), and 4 Lapis (4 lapis per level of Fortune):

Enchantment Diffusion

The repair infusion station can also be used for another purpose: enchantment diffusion. This uses the magical properties of cloth (woven from silk) to transfer an enchantment from a tool, weapon, or piece of armor, onto a book. The mechanics for this vary greatly depending on which version of Minecraft you are using. Be warned, this process damages the tool by 20% (though it can never destroy the tool). Luckily the infusion repair table is perfect for repairing it.

1.8 Versions:

Start by placing a piece of cloth (just one, not a stack) onto the infusion repair table just as you would a tool. Then drop your enchanted tool/weapon/armor (one per diffusion) onto the table, and the tool will be sucked into the table. Next, drop a regular book onto the table, and it too will be sucked in. You will then see hearts floating above the table. Stand on top of the table and it will drain health from you until the table is full (defaults to eight hearts, configurable). This process can kill you if you are injured. After the health is drained, the cloth will be consumed, and replaced by the now-enchanted book, and an enchantment will be removed from the tool.

1.7.10 Versions:

In the 1.7.10 version, the process is quite different. First, place a piece of cloth into the center slot. Then place the enchanted tool into one of the surrounding slots, followed by a book, and extract the enchanted book. In this version there is no need to sacrifice your health.

Campfire

The campfire is a very simple, cheap type of furnace, allowing you to cook food and roast marshmallows when you don’t have a home yet. It is much cheaper than a brick oven, but can only cook items when supplied with a pan (except marshmallows, which need to be put on a stick). However, in order to start cooking, it must be lit with a flint and steel or a fire bow. Every time it runs out of fuel or finishes its job, a “cooldown” period, where the campfire will start smoking with no flames, will occur, lasting 20 seconds. During this time supplying the campfire with fuel or an item to cook will restart the flames without needing a re-light. Once the cooldown period ends, the campfire will need to be relit. You can see how long the cooldown period has left by looking at the red bar next to the fuel slot.

A campfire is very cheap to craft requiring only two sticks and two string (any kind, see below):

String, Thread, and Twine

String is no longer obtainable from spiders. They drop silk instead. Silk can be crafted into thread, which is very similar to string (and has the same Ore Dictionary entry of “itemString”):

This thread can be crafted into cloth, which will eventually be usable for making cloth armor, a leather armor alternative [WIP].

You can also turn vines into twine with your knife (any knife will do). Twine can be used as string in most recipes.

String is now obtained by crafting wool with a knife. One wool will make four pieces of string.

Rock Hammer

The Rock Hammer allows you to smash blocks by breaking them, as you would with a pickaxe. It grinds stone into cobblestone, cobblestone into gravel, and gravel into flint. There will eventually be more features added to this. It is crafted like so:

Fire Bow

The Fire Bow is a low-cost alternative to the flint and steel (not the kind of bow that shoots arrows). It has only eight uses, however, and is best used for lighting campfires. It is very easy and cheap to craft (any type of string will do):

Pan

A pan is a necessary tool for cooking stuff in the campfire. It is a bit costly, but only takes damage when the campfire cooks meat. After 250 uses, it will break.

An early-game alternative to the pan is the rotisserie, crafted from two roasting sticks. It only lasts four uses, however.

Other Tweaks

Most blocks are not breakable without the correct tool. Shovel-based blocks, and ‘softer’ blocks (like leaves and wool) are excluded from this.

When on peaceful, bones are dropped from all mobs, not just skeletons. Chickens and ocelots will drop bone shards instead because of their size.

All meats cause negative effects when raw, not just chicken. Cooking them in a kiln will turn them into charred meat, which will make the meat safe to eat, but also take away some of the filling value. To properly cook meat, use a Brick Oven.